Hungarian Jews

* Government did not consult Jews on Holocaust monuments * Jewish leaders fear Hungary not facing up to wartime past * Government to commemorate all victims of 1944 Nazi occupation By Marton Dunai BUDAPEST, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Hungarian Jewish leaders said on Tuesday they may stay away from commemorations of the Holocaust in 2014 because of resurgent anti-Semitism in a nation that has struggled to come to terms with a wartime role in deporting...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian Jewish leaders said on Tuesday they may stay away from commemorations of the Holocaust in 2014 because of resurgent anti-Semitism in a nation that has struggled to come to terms with a wartime role in deporting Jews. The Hungarian government is planning to mark the 70th anniversary of June 1944, when 437,000 Jews were sent to Nazi death camps within weeks. In total, about half a million Jews perished before the Budapest ghetto was...

Seventy-nine-year-old Eva Csontos just wants the American military to do the right thing: Admit that, in the sorry days after World War II, U.S. troops took advantage of the chaos and plundered gold, art and valuables from her and thousands of other Hungarian Jews. "They must have known," said Csontos, who survived a Nazi work camp in Austria only to find after the war that her sister had died at Bergen-Belsen. "Everything was taken from the Jews--first our possessions,...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Hungarians rallied on Sunday to protest against what they said was growing anti-Semitism in the country which will host the plenary meeting of the World Jewish Congress next month. The annual March of the Living, which remembers the victims of the Holocaust and usually has a few thousand participants, attracted a much bigger crowd this time, with thousands walking from a square near parliament along the river Danube, carrying...

The first payouts have been distributed from a $25 million settlement with Holocaust survivors who lost jewelry, artwork and other treasures when a Nazi "Gold Train" was commandeered by U.S. soldiers during World War II. The U.S. government settled the class-action lawsuit in September, and lawyers involved in the case said Monday that about $4 million had so far been paid. Rather than trying to directly compensate people whose items were stolen, the deal calls for distributing...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - A Hungarian far-right politician urged the government to draw up lists of Jews who pose a "national security risk", stirring outrage among Jewish leaders who saw echoes of fascist policies that led to the Holocaust. Marton Gyongyosi, a leader of Hungary's third-strongest political party Jobbik, said the list was necessary because of heightened tensions following the brief conflict in Gaza and should include members of parliament. Opponents have...

In this memoir subgenre of grief, perhaps inspired by Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking," Johanna Adorjan's story of her grandparents' suicide pact transcends the genre's limitations. Adorjan's writing, which is both novelistic and deeply reported, imagines the last days of her grandparents, elegant Hungarian Jews and Holocaust survivors, and how they decided to live the last days of their lives in Copenhagen. In a well-considered decision, they tend to the rosebushes,...

In this memoir subgenre of grief, perhaps inspired by Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking," Johanna Adorjan's story of her grandparents' suicide pact transcends the genre's limitations. Adorjan's writing, which is both novelistic and deeply reported, imagines the last days of her grandparents, elegant Hungarian Jews and Holocaust survivors, and how they decided to live the last days of their lives in Copenhagen. In a well-considered decision, they tend to the rosebushes,...

"The Last Days": This year's winner of the Oscar for best documentary feature begins showing on HBO Thursday (7:30 p.m.), and again on Sunday and Wednesday and June 12 and 22. In 90 minutes, and using much historical footage, it tells the story of five U.S. citizens who grew up in Hungary, the last country the Nazis invaded in World War II, and their return to their homeland half a century later. Among the group is California U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, accompanied by his...

On her 17th birthday in 1944, Magda Brown and her parents were taken by train with hundreds of other Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Once at the concentration camp, she was separated from her parents and placed with other young and able-bodied prisoners apparently judged fit for forced labor by the Nazis. "When we asked where are parents were, those who'd got there before us would point to smoke pouring out of the chimneys," Brown, 82, who lives in suburban Chicago,...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Hungarians rallied on Sunday to protest against what they said was growing anti-Semitism in the country which will host the plenary meeting of the World Jewish Congress next month. The annual March of the Living, which remembers the victims of the Holocaust and usually has a few thousand participants, attracted a much bigger crowd this time, with thousands walking from a square near parliament along the river Danube, carrying...

The first payouts have been distributed from a $25 million settlement with Holocaust survivors who lost jewelry, artwork and other treasures when a Nazi "Gold Train" was commandeered by U.S. soldiers during World War II. The U.S. government settled the class-action lawsuit in September, and lawyers involved in the case said Monday that about $4 million had so far been paid. Rather than trying to directly compensate people whose items were stolen, the deal calls for distributing...

In 1944 a group of Hungarian Jews destined for Auschwitz struck an extraordinary deal with the Nazis. They paid a $2 million ransom in gold and precious stones in exchange for their lives. For half a century, the dramatic story, unique in the annals of the Holocaust, remained largely unknown except to the 1,684 men, women and children who were transported to safety in neutral Switzerland, just as 500,000 other Hungarian Jews were being sent to the gas chambers. It was the largest...

Seventy-nine-year-old Eva Csontos just wants the American military to do the right thing: Admit that, in the sorry days after World War II, U.S. troops took advantage of the chaos and plundered gold, art and valuables from her and thousands of other Hungarian Jews. "They must have known," said Csontos, who survived a Nazi work camp in Austria only to find after the war that her sister had died at Bergen-Belsen. "Everything was taken from the Jews--first our possessions,...

In the last weeks of World War II, as Soviet troops advanced from the east, Nazi officials in Hungary ordered that a train be sent west toward Germany with the collected wealth of Hungary's Jews. Their wedding bands alone filled crate after crate. American troops intercepted the train in Austria, in May 1945, and moved its contents--gold, silver, paintings, furs--to a warehouse near Salzburg. But according to a preliminary report released Thursday by U.S. investigators, the...

'I was lucky' Violinist Victor Aitay pays tribute to the man who saved him from the Nazis For Victor Aitay, it began with a violin his father gave him on an important day in his young life. It is a three-quarter-size fiddle, the kind played by children just beginning to take music lessons. He keeps it in a display case at his Highland Park home. Inside the instrument is a yellowed note. "From your father, on your sixth birthday," it reads. To anyone...

The political reforms that have spawned a heady new sense of freedom among Hungarians also may have allowed a measure of anti-Semitism to emerge in a country long noted for religious tolerance. Government officials, diplomats and religious leaders interviewed during the last 10 days say anti-Semitism is more pronounced now than at almost any time since the end of World War II. A series of relatively minor but alarming incidents have been reported in the last year in Budapest:...

In 1944 a group of Hungarian Jews destined for Auschwitz struck an extraordinary deal with the Nazis. They paid a $2 million ransom in gold and precious stones in exchange for their lives. For half a century, the dramatic story, unique in the annals of the Holocaust, remained largely unknown except to the 1,684 men, women and children who were transported to safety in neutral Switzerland, just as 500,000 other Hungarian Jews were being sent to the gas chambers. It was the largest...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - A Hungarian far-right politician urged the government to draw up lists of Jews who pose a "national security risk", stirring outrage among Jewish leaders who saw echoes of fascist policies that led to the Holocaust. Marton Gyongyosi, a leader of Hungary's third-strongest political party Jobbik, said the list was necessary because of heightened tensions following the brief conflict in Gaza and should include members of parliament. Opponents have...